COTBC 04

Chapter 04

Isaac woke up to the sound of bustling movement.

It was Hans.

His face was full of scabs and wounds.

‘There shouldn’t be anything there.’

Isaac’s room was completely surrounded by bricks made of Dimeritium.

The walls were built with the most magically resistant ore to prevent any damage, even in case Isaac caused a mana explosion.

But then—

Swoosh—

When Hans opened the curtain by the window, sunlight poured in.

“Ah, you’re awake, young master. You were sweating a lot in your sleep. And your complexion looks pale. Did you have trouble sleeping?”

“…….”

Isaac said nothing.

He didn’t know what he should say.

Was this a dream or reality?

His rational mind kept insisting that this was just a dream, an illusion.

That it was merely the brightest moment before sunset.

The last spark of life before death arrived.

A memory from the time he missed the most, the time he most wished to return to.

“Young master? Are you all right? Did you have a bad dream?”

Hans asked again, looking worried.

“……”

The clearer Hans’s voice became, the clearer Isaac’s vision became and the more distinctly he could see Hans’s face,

The more the details matched his memories, the more Isaac’s face twisted with distress.

‘Why am I still trapped in the stains of the past even at the very end?’

He squeezed his eyes shut.

Hoping the dream would end soon.

Hoping for eternal rest to come quickly.

Wishing to rest in the complete darkness where nothing remained.

“A-are you feeling sick? Did you catch a cold?”

Flinch.

Isaac was startled when Hans placed the back of his hand on Isaac’s forehead.

The sensation felt far too real.

“Thankfully, you don’t have a fever.”

“His Excellency and the madam are terribly worried. If you feel even the slightest discomfort, you must tell this Hans.”

Isaac stared blankly at Hans.

Scars and bruises of all sizes covered his face.

All of them were injuries caused by Isaac’s mana explosions.

It must’ve been around this time.

That Hans, who used to laugh it off and say it was nothing, actually died.

Isaac clenched the bedsheet in his hand.

Even the feel of the velvet fabric felt real.

It was ominous.

Because sensations this vivid meant that the upcoming tragedy would also feel equally real.

“Hans.”

He might get hurt if he stayed close.

Suppressing his emotions with great effort, Isaac spoke coldly.

“Yes, young master. If there is anything you need…”

“Get out.”

He didn’t want to see the nightmare through to the end.

“…Pardon?”

“I said get out! Disappear from my sight. Now!”

Isaac snapped at Hans, who looked confused.

It was a sharp, immature voice, not yet touched by puberty.

Hans should’ve been offended, but he simply smiled and nodded.

“As you wish.”

Just as he was stepping away, Hans paused for a moment.

“Please, don’t try to carry everything on your own. Sometimes, it’s okay to rely on us too.”

“…….”

With those words, Hans exited the room.

Isaac gave a bitter smile.

Those words weren’t in his memory.

Maybe it was something his unconscious mind recreated in the dream—words he longed to hear.

“So vivid…”

Isaac gazed around the room in a daze.

Everything was exactly as it had been.

The bed and coat stand.

A portrait of Isaac, created out of his father’s affection.

An old wooden table, a bookshelf, a desk, a storage cabinet, and a full-length mirror.

“It’s like I’ve really returned to the past.”

Isaac let out a sigh.

He hadn’t lost his rationality yet.

His mind wasn’t so far gone as to confuse a hallucination for reality.

He had clearly died in front of his family’s grave.

His eyelids had been too heavy, and he could no longer move a single finger.

Darkness had rushed in like a flood.

It was death.

The first and last experience of it—but without a doubt, it was death.

It was something any living being would instinctively recognize.

“To put it another way, this must be like dying embers.”

The flame of life had long been extinguished.

All that remained were the fading embers, gradually vanishing.

So Isaac thought.

A breeze came through the gap in the open window.

It smelled like spring.

Isaac found himself walking toward the window without realizing it.

Outside, he saw the garden in the courtyard that his mother had tended with such care.

In the middle of it stood a massive tree that had shared over two centuries with Goethe.

It was budding with new leaves.

‘Jonas and I used to play hanging from that tree.’

He vividly recalled Jonas climbing the tree to return a fallen baby bird to its nest.

And then falling on his bottom and bursting into tears—his little brother’s face flashed in his mind.

Chirp, chirp—

“………”

Looking closely at the tree, he saw a nest among the branches.

Baby birds poked their heads out of it, crying loudly.

“Ah…”

Isaac’s lips parted slightly.

A sigh slipped out like a groan.

He wished this were reality.

He wished he could truly go back in time.

If only that were possible, he would gladly endure any pain.

So he thought.

“Young master, be careful!”

A nanny shouted from the courtyard.

“…!”

A small child was already halfway up the tree, struggling as he climbed.

The boy’s golden hair sparkled under the sun, catching the eye.

There was only one child in this family with hair that color at that age.

Jonas.

“Ah, big brother!”

Before he knew it, Jonas had perched himself on a thick branch and was waving at Isaac, who stood by the window.

‘It’s a phantom. A dream. An illusion.’

‘It’s the past.’

‘It can’t be changed.’

‘It’s already too late.’

‘Lingering regrets are meaningless.’

Isaac repeated these thoughts to himself.

But before he realized it, he was already waving back at Jonas.

What was truly shaking wasn’t his hand, but his soul.

Whether it was a joke from a god, mercy from a ferryman of hell, an illusion, a life-flashing-before-his-eyes, or the afterlife—

None of that mattered in this moment.

Just exchanging a greeting with his younger brother from childhood—

That alone made him feel like the decades of suffering and torment spent underground had finally been repaid.

Like rust, like mold, like moss growing thick—

He felt as if the regrets clinging to his soul were being washed clean.

Jonas climbed down the tree and disappeared somewhere, and the shadow of the large tree gradually shifted, bit by bit.

Isaac remained in that feeling, in that emotion.

He didn’t want to let go.

And just as he felt he had savored it enough—

“O, traveler setting out on your journey, can you stand alone before the infinite, in solitude and solitude?”

Isaac quietly recited a line of poetry he had once written.

The method he had practiced longest to control “Mana Rampage” was meditation.

Even when he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, countless worries would rise.

When memories of the past tormented him—

He would recite the poetic lines he had compiled from his research journals, which he had written like a diary.

When he did that—

He could realize that the nightmare was just a nightmare.

That the dream was merely a dream.

That the memory was only a memory.

The illusion before his eyes would disappear.

And what remained was only himself, the present, and reality.

And now—

It was the final prayer to accept death.

“A lonely world where only you exist before the mana—

You shall awaken to yourself.”

Isaac took a deep breath and continued the verse.

The sunlight is so brilliant.

The wind is so refreshing.

The room is so cozy.

His senses were so vivid.

But now it was time to go.

Time to completely vanish into the embrace of comfortable darkness.

“……Lay down your thoughts, Abandon the perspective engraved by life. Break free from the leash of the past, and become—  You.”

Now, everything will be erased.

This entire illusion.

His very existence.

Because that’s what death is.

So Isaac believed.

But—

Chirp—

Chirp—

The baby birds were still crying.

The sunlight was still brilliant.

The wind was still refreshing.

The room was still cozy.

His senses were still vivid.

“Why…?”

Isaac blinked several times.

He rubbed his eyes.

He closed his eyes and counted to ten before opening them again.

Smack—

He slapped his own cheek.

It hurt.

“…It hurt?”

Isaac rubbed his stinging cheek.

He looked around again.

‘Where… am I?’

He knew.

At the very least, he knew this was his room.

But Isaac wanted to know something deeper.

He wanted to know where he truly was.

But that question soon slipped from his mind.

Because he became transfixed by the full-length mirror in the corner of the room.

That was Isaac.

Yes, it was Isaac—but it wasn’t the Isaac he knew.

Ash-grey hair that resembled his mother’s.

Eyes of icy blue, like his father’s.

Sharp eyes.

A high-bridged nose.

Pale skin.

It wasn’t the body of an old man, no different from a walking corpse.

He may have been a thin, sharp-looking boy—

But in front of the mirror stood a handsome young boy.

“……”

Isaac stared into his widened eyes.

He had completely forgotten.

He had once had a time like this too.

Even for an old man who now had nothing left but wretchedness and ugliness—

There had once been a time when he shone in his own way.

The eyes of the boy in the mirror deepened with regret.

The gaze, at least, was still Isaac’s own.

A sigh naturally escaped his lips.

“Big brother!”

Suddenly, Jonas knocked on the door.

It was a voice different from his memory.

A very young and adorable voice.

“Big brother, can I come in? Bro?”

Isaac stared blankly at the door.

His desire to see Jonas and the thought that he must not did battle in his heart.

The voice of reason told him this was nothing more than a memory long gone, but his soul screamed, demanding how he was supposed to resist that longing.

“Isaac? Brother?”

Before Isaac could even make a decision—

Jonas had already turned the doorknob and peeked his head through the crack.

He couldn’t have been more than ten years old.

The sight of young Jonas was quite different from the one Isaac last remembered.

Curly golden hair, a chubby and lively face, twinkling eyes, and a bright smile.

Most of all, his tiny right hand was still intact.

“Let’s play knights! Yeah?”

Isaac just stared blankly at Jonas.

Which of these is the dream?

The final winter.

Jonas’s body, far too light.

His blunted right wrist.

Snow, corpses, ruins, frozen ground.

—I truly loved you very much.

The voice of Jonas as an old man suddenly came to mind.

“Big brother? Are you crying?”

At Jonas’s question, Isaac turned his head away.

“Leave.”

“Huh?”

“Leave.”

Isaac spoke calmly, but firmly.

“I don’t have time to play with you right now.”

“Big brother…”

“I said get out!”

When Isaac raised his voice, Jonas flinched and trembled.

“O-okay, don’t be mad… I’ll go.”

Jonas turned back toward the door again and again, but—

Isaac never once looked back.

Isaac stood frozen in place like a statue, fists tightly clenched.

He wanted to hold Jonas.

He wanted to ruffle that curly hair.

But the uneasy resonance he felt in his body—

Even the sensation of something cracking inside him felt real.

‘Could I find materials to make a rune stone in the mansion?’

Isaac paused to think for a moment, then moved his feet.

The method he had spent a lifetime researching to overcome his rare condition—the one he had finally succeeded with—ran through his mind.

‘Dream or reality, it doesn’t matter. I must avoid a mana explosion.’

Half a day passed.

In the research lab at the annex—

Isaac held a rune stone in one hand.

And in the other—

Fwoosh.

A flame blazed into life.

‘What… is this?’

Chills ran down his spine.

The sensation of mana in various states forming a stable structure and triggering a phenomenon.

This sensation wasn’t something a dream or hallucination could mimic.

The burning firecap born from burning mana—

That firecap flame was reflected in Isaac’s blue eyes.

He was standing in undeniable reality.

The past had become the present.

Isaac existed here and now.

FWOOSH—

Suddenly, the flames roared as if to consume everything.

“…!?”

At the same time, a strange sensation jolted Isaac’s instincts.

The single thread of mana circulation branched out into multiple new paths.

It was a foreign sensation, like using muscles for the first time that had never been used before.